Oriental Despotism

China’s Communist Party is as shadowy and repressive as when it took power 70 years ago

By YAQIU WANG

On Sept. 23, the wife of 38-year-old Chinese activist Wang Meiyu learned that her husband had died in a detention center in Hunan province, less than three months after the police detained him there. Wang had staged lone protests calling for Xi Jinping to step down and allow democracy in China.
“He was a healthy, normal man when he went in there,” Wang’s widow told Radio Free Asia. 

“When I saw his [dead] body… he was totally unrecognizable.”
Those who rely on Chinese media for their news are unlikely ever to hear about Wang’s death — or about the hundreds of thousands of other Chinese citizens who have run afoul of the government. Controlling information has always been central to Chinese Communist Party rule, and as the 70th anniversary of that rule approaches on Oct. 1, the propaganda machine is in overdrive. 

What Chinese people hear are Xi’s speeches extolling the party’s achievements and interviews with people expressing their national pride. 

They see images of government-produced high-speed trains, state-of-the-art weaponry, and high-tech mega projects.
“There are actually two Chinas,” Chinese scholar Qian Liqun said in a speech. 

“One is the China amplified by the historical narrative and propaganda machinery, a China that strides triumphantly and is unstoppable. The other is the China ravaged and denied, perishing in the darkness.”
As a China researcher for Human Rights Watch, I know something about that other China. 

It’s one where people are routinely imprisoned for speaking out for a more just and free society, where a critical comment online about the president can get someone forcibly disappeared, and where a person can be declared mentally ill and sent to a psychiatric hospital for seeking compensation for expropriated land.
It is the China where a million Turkic Muslims in the East Turkestan colony are now being detained solely because of their ethnic identity, while many of their children are forcibly housed in state-run boarding schools. 

It is the China where millions of women have suffered the trauma of forced sterilizations and abortions, and where children cannot go to school because they were born outside of the One-Child or Two-Child policies.
“The other China” is the one whose existence the Communist Party denies and forbids anyone to speak about.
The other day I came across an anonymous posting by a woman based in Shanghai who had found her way to some Human Rights Watch’s research on East Turkestan — presumably using a virtual private network, or VPN, to circumvent the state censorship that prevents internet users in China from reading uncensored news of the region. 

She described how her “heart sank” and her “body trembled” as she learned of the government’s brutal repression. 

She wrote that her daily life in the first China was “good and vacuous,” but when reading censored news websites about “the other China” she feels “uncontrollably frightened” and “powerless.”
Most Chinese people, at least for now, can live their lives untroubled by “the other China.” 

But there are no guarantees of not being suddenly engulfed by it. 

The billionaire Xiao Jianhua and the former vice minister of public security and president of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, now live in “the other China,” incarcerated since 2017 and 2018, respectively. 

Once you are pulled into that shadowy world, it is difficult to get out. 

Actress Fan Bingbing only reemerged from months of house arrest after making a groveling public apology.
People understand the message of these cases, and do their utmost to protect themselves.
Last year, the writer Yangyang Cheng, tweeted about how, at the age of 8, she learned to be careful about expressing dissent. 

After a “lively dinner” at her grandmother’s, Cheng said in her tweet, she wrote in her diary about the night’s political discussion. 

“My mother blocked out the lines with the darkest of ink,” Cheng tweeted, “and told me to never write such things again.”
This is not just the impulse of intellectuals. 

Even at a time of strong nationalistic sentiment and high tension with the West, many hope to immigrate to Western countries. 

In 2017, nearly 90% of the applicants on the waiting list for America’s investment-based green cards were from China. 

Many Chinese have chosen to store their assets abroad—so much so that the massive wave of capital flight in recent years has prompted the party to resort to extreme measures to control it.
After all, no one would want to meet the same fate as Xiao Jianhua or Wang Meiyu.
Seventy years into the Chinese Communist Party’s rule, millions of people now live in the China that promises material comfort and convenience, and projects political unity. 

But they all live in fear of “the other China”— a reality the party’s top brass relies on to maintain control.

Hong Kong and the Future of Freedom

Under Trump, Uncle Sam no longer puts up his fists in defense of Lady Liberty.
By Bret Stephens

Protesters faced off against the police in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

Imagine if in 2018 the Trump administration had proposed legislation that would allow the government, on nearly any pretext, to detain, try and imprison Americans accused of wrongdoing at secretive black sites scattered across the country.
Imagine, further, that 43 million Americans had risen in protest, only to be met by tear gas and rubber bullets while Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan rushed the bill through a pliant Congress. 

Finally, imagine that there was no effective judiciary ready to stop the bill and uphold the Constitution.
That, approximately, is what’s happening this week in Hong Kong.
An estimated one million people — nearly one in seven city residents — have taken to the streets to protest legislation that would allow local officials to arrest and extradite to the mainland any person accused of one of 37 types of crime. 

Political offenses are, in theory, excluded from the list, but nobody is fooled: Contriving criminal charges against political opponents is child’s play for Beijing, which can then make its victims disappear indefinitely until they are brought to heel.
In 2015, mainland authorities abducted five Hong Kong booksellers known for selling politically sensitive titles and held them in solitary confinement for months until they pleaded guilty to various offenses. 

In 2017 Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua was abducted by Chinese authorities from the Four Seasons in Hong Kong. 

He hasn’t been seen publicly since, while his company is being stripped of its holdings.
The extradition bill is the next evolution in this repressive trend. 

It won’t be the last.
Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland is supposed to be governed by the principle of “one country, two systems.” 

But as with any form of pluralism, it’s a principle that poses inherent dangers to Beijing. 

It was little West Berlin that, merely by being free, helped bring down the mighty (as it seemed at the time) Honecker regime in East Germany in 1989. 

The Chinese supreme leader, Xi Jinping, isn’t about to let that happen to him via Hong Kong.
Then again, maybe he shouldn’t be so worried. 

Throughout the 1980s the free world was politically united and morally confident: It believed in its liberal-democratic values, in their universality, and in the immorality of those who sought to abridge or deny them.
It also wasn’t afraid to speak out. 

When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union “the focus of evil in the modern world,” one prominent liberal writer denounced him as “primitive.” 

But it was such rhetoric that gave courage to dissidents and dreamers on the other side of the wall. 

What’s really primitive is to look upon the oppression of others and, whether out of deficient sympathy or excessive sophistication, remain silent.
Compare the free world then with what it is today. 

“I’m sure they’ll be able to work it out,” was just about all Donald Trump could bring himself to say about the Hong Kong protests during a press conference on Wednesday with the Polish president, Andrzej Duda. 

As clarion moments in U.S. moral leadership go, “Ich bin ein Berliner” it was not.
Trump and Duda are two of the more prominent champions of the new populist nationalism, which believes in butting out of the affairs of others so they may butt out of yours. 

Trump has applied the principle widely, from Saudi Arabia’s treatment of gadfly journalists to North Korea’s treatment of everybody. 

It’s the right-wing version of the left’s cultural relativism, always asking: “Who are we to judge?”
Why does Trump have next to nothing to say about the robbery of rights in Hong Kong? 

Because, as far as he’s concerned, it’s a domestic Chinese affair. 

Why does he seem to be indifferent to the fact that Beijing’s behavior violates the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration? 

Because that’s someone else’s business, too, concerning a treaty signed a long time ago by people who are now dead.
All this means that Xi can dispose of the Hong Kong demonstrators as he likes without fear of outside consequences. 

Under Trump, Uncle Sam might be happy to threaten tariffs one day and promise to make a deal the next. 

But he no longer puts up his fists in defense of Lady Liberty.
That’s not to say that Hong Kongers should give up hope. 

As William McGurn pointed out in an astute Wall Street Journal column, the extradition bill has turned law-abiding Hong Kongers into a million new Chinese dissidents. 

Democracies may frequently be ill-led, but they have the saving grace of making discontent work for the system, not against it. 

Authoritarian regimes don’t have that option. 

The inflexibility that makes them fearsome also makes them brittle.
The world continues to endure a democratic recession, made worse by the surly ignorance of an American president. 

It won’t last forever. 

The efficient authoritarianism that is supposed to be the secret to China’s global ascendancy is being exposed for what it is — a state whose greatest fear is the conscience of those marching in Hong Kong’s streets.

UK lawmakers warn journalists and activists could be extradited by Hong Kong to China under new law

By James Griffiths

Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator Claudia Mo (center right) and bookseller Lam Wing-kee (center left) protest the government's plans to approve an extradition deal with mainland China.

Hong Kong -- The UK government has expressed concern over a new extradition law between Hong Kong and China, as British lawmakers warned the move could see pro-democracy activists, journalists, and foreign business owners surrendered to Chinese authorities.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he had "formally lodged our initial concerns" with the Hong Kong government, he said in a letter to Chris Patten, the city's last colonial governor.
"We have made it clear to the Chinese and Hong Kong Special Administrative Regions that it is vital that Hong Kong enjoys, and is seen to enjoy, the full measure of its high degree of autonomy and rule of law as set out in the Joint Declaration and enshrined in the Basic Law... I can assure you that I, and my department, will continue to closely monitor developments in Hong Kong," Hunt said, according to a copy of the letter Patten shared with UK-based pressure group Hong Kong Watch.
"It is clear that the relatively short formal consultation process has not been sufficient to capture the wide-ranging views on this important topic."
While Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, the city operates its own legal and political system, and citizens enjoy a number of freedoms not protected on the mainland.

At present, Hong Kong does not have an extradition law with China, Taiwan or Macau, a situation officials in the city say has created loopholes preventing criminals from being brought to justice.
Fear that the law will allow dissidents and pro-democracy activists to be bundled over the border to China has dogged the bill since it was first suggested, however.
Business groups too have expressed concerns, prompting the government to remove nine economic crimes from the list of potentially extraditable offenses. 

The government also changed the minimum severity of offense from those carrying one year in prison to three.
In a statement responding to those changes, the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) said members continued "to have serious concerns about the revised proposal."
"Those concerns flow primarily from the fact that the new arrangements could be used for rendition from Hong Kong to a number of jurisdictions with criminal procedure systems very different from that of Hong Kong -- which provides strong protections for the legitimate rights of defendants -- without the opportunity for public and legislative scrutiny of the fairness of those systems and the specific safeguards that should be sought in cases originating from them," the AmCham statement said.
"We strongly believe that the proposed arrangements will reduce the appeal of Hong Kong to international companies considering Hong Kong as a base for regional operations."

Protesters march along a street during a rally in Hong Kong on March 31, 2019, to protest against the government's plans to approve extraditions with mainland China, Taiwan and Macau.

Responding to reporter's questions about the law last month, Hong Kong Secretary for Security John Lee said the extradition law was part of the city's "international commitment to fight organized crime."
He said the foreign business community should support the effort, which "will benefit (the) business environment."
"If the accusation is that somebody may unwittingly become a political offender, then I have said repeatedly that the law at present, under our Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, has clearly stated that this will not be possible," Lee added.
"There is a provision to say that no matter how you purport that offense to be, if it relates to political opinion, religion, nationality or ethnicity, then it will not be surrenderable."
AmCham's statement is part of a growing chorus of condemnation of the law from multiple quarters. Critics of the law point to past situations where people have been snatched in Hong Kong and transported to China to face trial, including multiple booksellers and Chinese businessman Xiao Jianhua.
Last week, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) said the new law could enable the Chinese government to extradite reporters critical of Beijing, saying it would "not only threaten the safety of journalists but also have a chilling effect on the freedom of expression in Hong Kong."
"Over the years, numerous journalists have been charged or harassed by mainland authorities with criminal allegations covered by the (law)," it said.
"The (law) will make it possible for mainland authorities to get hold of journalists in Hong Kong (on) all kinds of unfounded charges. This sword hanging over journalists will muzzle both the journalists and the whistleblowers, bringing an end to the limited freedom of speech that Hong Kong still enjoys."
The Hong Kong Bar Association has also criticized the new law, and questioned the government's assertion that there were loopholes in the city's current arrangements.

China's State Terrorism

The Foreign Billionaires, Activists and Missionaries Detained in China

By Javier C. Hernández

Michael Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat who was detained in Beijing on Monday.
BEIJING — Missionaries. Corporate investigators. Billionaires. Legal activists.

China has a long history of arresting or holding foreigners for mysterious reasons, often in a tit-for-tat play to put pressure on overseas rivals. 

In recent years the number of such detentions has increased, a disturbing trend for foreigners visiting or conducting business in the country.
Michael Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat who was detained in Beijing on Monday, is the latest foreigner to be held by the Chinese in retribution for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's CFO, in Canada, this month.
Here are some recent cases of foreigners caught in the cross hairs of China’s opaque legal system.

The Missionaries

Julia and Kevin Garratt back in Canada in 2016. The couple were arrested in 2014 by the Chinese authorities on “suspicion of stealing and spying to obtain state secrets.”

Kevin and Julia Garratt, Christian aid workers from Canada, were best known in Dandong, a Chinese city near the border with North Korea, for operating a popular coffee shop. 

They also worked with a charity that provided food to North Koreans. 

But in 2014, they were arrested by the Chinese authorities on “suspicion of stealing and spying to obtain state secrets.”
Ms. Garratt was released on bail and allowed to leave China. 

Mr. Garratt spent two years in prison before his eventual release. 

Both have denied the accusations.
The Chinese have arrested the Garratts in hopes of pressuring Canada into releasing Su Bin, a Chinese spy who was being held in Vancouver, after the United States accused him of stealing military data and sought extradition. 

The Billionaire

The government of China has never specified the reasons for the abduction of Xiao Jianhua, a wealthy and well-connected Chinese-born Canadian citizen.

On a January morning last year, Xiao Jianhua, one of China’s most politically connected financiers, was escorted out of the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong in a wheelchair by unidentified men. 

Xiao had rare insight into the financial holdings of China’s most powerful families, having made his fortune investing in banks, insurers and real estate.
Xiao, a Chinese-born Canadian citizen, is now believed to be in custody in the mainland, helping the authorities with investigations into the finance industry, though the government has not specified the reasons for his abduction.

The Corporate Investigators

Peter Humphrey, left, and his wife, Yu Yingzeng, both corporate investigators, came under scrutiny as part of a Chinese government investigation into fraud and corruption at GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical maker.

Peter Humphrey, a British private investigator, and his wife, Yu Yingzeng, a Chinese-born American citizen, ran a small consulting firm in Shanghai that specialized in “discreet investigations” for multinational companies, focusing on issues like counterfeiting and embezzlement.
But as an investigation by the Chinese government into fraud and corruption at GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical maker, escalated in 2013, Humphrey and Yu, who advised the firm, came under scrutiny as well. 

The couple were arrested and charged with violating the rights of Chinese citizens by obtaining private information. 

Humphrey and Yu served prison sentences of about two years.

The Legal Advocate

Peter Dahlin, the Swedish co-founder of a nongovernmental organization that provided legal aid to Chinese citizens, was forced to apologize on national television and then deported.

Peter Dahlin, a Swedish citizen, was the co-founder of a nongovernmental organization in Beijing that provided legal aid to Chinese citizens. 

His work soon caught the attention of the authorities, who were cracking down on foreign nongovernmental organizations and human rights lawyers.
In early 2016, Mr. Dahlin was detained and interrogated for 23 days by China’s Ministry of State Security. 

He was forced to record a confession and to apologize on national television. 

Then he was deported.

The Fugitive’s Family

Victor and Cynthia Liu, who are American citizens, in an image provided by family friends. They have been held in China for months in what some describe as a bid to lure back their father, Liu Changming, a former bank executive who is among China’s most-wanted fugitives.

Liu Changming, a former executive at a state-owned bank in China, is among China’s most-wanted fugitives.
He is accused of playing a central role in a $1.4 billion fraud case.
He fled the country in 2007.
Now, in what some describe as a bid to lure Liu back, the Chinese government is preventing his wife and children, who are American citizens, from leaving China.
Liu’s wife, Sandra Han, and their children, Victor and Cynthia, arrived in China in June to visit an ailing relative.
Han was detained, and the children have been held for months under a practice known as an exit ban.

Rogue Nation

China Wields Its "Laws" to Silence Critics From Abroad
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and CHRIS HORTON

Lee Ming-cheh, second from left, an activist from Taiwan, in court in the Chinese city of Yueyang, Hunan Province, last week. The case against Mr. Lee punctuates what critics warn are China’s efforts to stifle what it perceives as threats from overseas. 

BEIJING — On the morning he disappeared, the activist Lee Ming-cheh crossed from Macau into mainland China to meet with democracy advocates.
It was 177 days later when he reappeared in public, standing in the dock of a courtroom in central China last week, confessing to a conspiracy to subvert the Communist Party by circulating criticism on social media.
The circumstances surrounding Mr. Lee’s detainment remain murky, but what has made the case stand out from the many that the Chinese government brings against its critics is that Mr. Lee is not a citizen of China, but rather of Taiwan, the self-governing island over which Beijing claims sovereignty.
The proceedings against Mr. Lee, who is expected to be sentenced as soon as this week, punctuated what critics have warned are China’s brazen efforts to extend the reach of its security forces to stifle what it perceives as threats to its power emanating from overseas.
In recent months alone, China has sought the extradition of ethnic Uighur students studying overseas in Egypt and carried out the cinematic seizure of a billionaire from a Hong Kong hotel in violation of an agreement that allows the former British colony to run its own affairs. 

The billionaire, Xiao Jianhua, now appears to be a material witness in another politically tinged investigation against the Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda.

China abruptly surfaced charges of "rape" against yet another billionaire, Guo Wengui, after he sought political asylum in the United States, where he has been making sensational accusations about the Communist Party’s leadership. 

Mr. Guo’s case could become a major test for the Trump administration’s relations with Beijing at a time of tensions over North Korea and trade.

The Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui has sought political asylum in the United States.

“China has been extending its clampdown — its choking of civil society — throughout the world, and often it is attempting this through official channels such as the U.N. or Interpol,” said Michael Caster, a rights campaigner who was a co-founder of the Chinese Urgent Action Working Group. “Unfortunately, they’re very adept at doing it.”
The Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, which provided seminars for lawyers and legal aid for defendants in China, folded last year after the country’s powerful Ministry of State Security arrested and held Mr. Caster’s colleague, Peter Dahlin, a Swedish citizen, for 23 days.
Mr. Caster noted that Interpol’s president, Meng Hongwei, is a veteran of China’s state security apparatus. 

Human Rights Watch recently reported that China was blocking the work of United Nations agencies investigating rights issues and preventing critics from testifying at hearings, including in one case the leader of the World Uyghur Congress, Dolkun Isa.
China’s economic clout has meant that few countries are willing to do much to challenge its extraterritorial legal maneuvers. 

Some have even gone along.
And countries as varied as Armenia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kenya, Spain and Vietnam have all extradited to China scores of people accused in a spate of telephone swindles targeting Chinese citizens, even though the suspects are, like Mr. Lee, citizens of Taiwan.
“Treating Lee Ming-cheh as a mainland Chinese marks a major watershed,” said Hsiao I-Min, a lawyer at the Judicial Reform Foundation in Taiwan, who accompanied Mr. Lee’s wife from Taiwan to attend the trial.

Peter Dahlin, a Swedish citizen, was arrested in China and held for 23 days last year.

Mr. Lee’s case has added new strain in relations with Taiwan, which have soured since the election last year of a new president, Tsai Ing-wen. 

China has cut off official communications with Ms. Tsai’s government over her refusal to voice support for what Beijing calls the “1992 consensus,” which holds that the mainland and Taiwan are both part of the same China but leaves each side to interpret what that means.
In response to Mr. Lee’s legal odyssey, Ms. Tsai’s government has been relatively muted. 

“Our consistent position on this case is that we will do everything in our power to ensure his safe return while protecting the dignity of the nation,” said a spokesman for the presidential administration, Alex Huang.
China and Taiwan had in recent years cooperated on criminal investigations under a protocol that required each to notify the other in cases involving the arrests of its citizens. 

The Chinese government has recently abandoned such diplomatic niceties, officials in Taiwan say.
Taiwan’s government was notified of Mr. Lee’s arrest only when the public was — 10 days after his detainment in March near Macau, the former Portuguese colony that, like Hong Kong, is a special administrative region of China with its own legal system.
Mr. Lee, 42, assumed enormous risk to make contact with rights campaigners inside China. 

A manager at Wenshan Community College in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, Mr. Lee volunteered for a rights organization called Covenants Watch and often traveled to the mainland.
Mr. Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu, learned his case had come to a head when a state-appointed lawyer contacted her this month. 

She only found out about his court appearance last week in Yueyang, in the southern province of Hunan, from news reports that circulated two days later, according to Patrick Poon, a researcher at Amnesty International.

Lee Ching-yu, the wife of Mr. Lee, departing for her husband’s trial in China from an airport in Taipei, Taiwan, this month. 

According to excerpts released by the Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court, Mr. Lee entered a guilty plea. 

He appeared with a Chinese co-defendant, Peng Yuhua, and together they were accused of trying to organize protests using the social media platforms WeChat and QQ, as well as Facebook, which is banned here.
Mr. Lee told the court that watching Chinese state television during his prolonged detention convinced him that he had been deceived by Taiwan’s free news media and was wrong about China’s political system. 

“These incorrect thoughts led me to criminal behavior,” he said.
Mr. Hsiao, the lawyer from Taiwan, said none of Mr. Lee’s acquaintances had heard of the co-defendant. 

Mr. Peng testified that together they had established chat groups online and formed a front organization, the Plum Blossom Company, with the aim of fomenting change. 

Mr. Hsiao said that no such company existed.
“He was a fake,” Mr. Hsiao said of Mr. Peng. 

“This guy does not really exist. He was playing a role.”
Ms. Lee, too, denounced her husband’s trial as a farce. 

“Today the world and I together witnessed political theater, as well as the differences between the core beliefs of Taiwan and China,” she said at her hotel in Yueyang, adding that the “norms of expression in Taiwan are tantamount to armed rebellion in China.”
Mr. Lee’s case has echoes of the fate of five booksellers in Hong Kong, four of whom who were spirited out of the semiautonomous city in the fall of 2015 after publishing gossipy material about Chinese political intrigues, which, while legal in Hong Kong, is not in China.
One bookseller, Lee Bo, is a British citizen. 

Another, Gui Minhai, is a naturalized Swedish citizen; he vanished from his seaside apartment in Pattaya, Thailand, in October 2015 and returned to China in a manner that has not been fully explained. 

He appeared on state television in January 2016 and said he had voluntarily returned to face punishment for a fatal car accident in 2003. 

He remains in prison.
“What happened to my father is a much larger issue,” Mr. Gui’s daughter, Angela Gui, who has been campaigning for his release, wrote in an email. 

“It shows that foreign citizens aren’t safe from Chinese state security, even when they are outside China’s borders. I find it strange that governments aren’t more worried about China’s new self-proclaimed role as world police.”

Perfidious Albion

Britain is looking away as China tramples on the freedom of Hong Kong – and my father

By Angela Gui

Angela Gui: ‘My father’s case is only one out of many that illustrate the death of the rule of law in Hong Kong.’ 

Iam too young to remember the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 and its promise for the new world I would live in. 

But I have lived to see that promise trampled.
The Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed to pave the way for the handover, was supposed to protect the people of Hong Kong from Chinese interference in their society and markets until 2047. 

Yet as the handover’s 20th anniversary approaches, China muscles in where it promised to tread lightly while Britain avoids eye contact.

Gui Minhai: the strange disappearance of a publisher who riled China's elite
As Xi Jinping has consolidated his grip on Chinese politics since he took office in 2013, Beijing has increasingly ignored the principle of “one country, two systems” on which the handover was based and actively eroded the freedoms this was supposed to guarantee.
In October 2015, my father Gui Minhai and his four colleagues were targeted and abducted by the agents of the Chinese Communist party for their work as booksellers and publishers. 

My father – a Swedish citizen – was taken while on holiday in Thailand, in the same place we’d spent Christmas together the year before. 

He was last seen getting into a car with a Mandarin-speaking man who had waited for him outside his holiday apartment. 

Next, his friend and colleague Lee Bo was abducted from the Hong Kong warehouse of Causeway Bay Books, which they ran together. 

Lee Bo is legally British and, like any Hong Konger, his freedom of expression should have been protected by the terms of 1997.
Their only “crime” had been to publish and sell books that were critical of the central Chinese government. 

So paranoid is Beijing about its public image, that it chooses to carry out cross-border kidnappings over some books. 

Causeway Bay Books specialised in publications that were banned on the mainland but legal in Hong Kong. 

The store’s manager, Lam Wing-kee, who was taken when travelling to Shenzhen, has described Causeway Bay Books “a symbol of resistance”. 

In spite of Hong Kong’s legal freedoms of speech and of the press the store is now closed because all its people have been abducted or bullied away. 

Other Hong Kong booksellers are picking “politically sensitive” titles off their shelves in the fear that they may be next; the next brief headline, the next gap in a family like my own.
I continue to live with my father’s absence – his image, messages from his friends, the cause he has become. 

Turning 53 this year, he spent a second birthday in a Chinese prison. 

Soon he will have spent two years in detention without access to a lawyer, Swedish consular officials, or regular contact with his family.
My father’s case is only one of many that illustrate the death of the rule of law in Hong Kong. 

Earlier this year, Canadian businessman Xiao Jianhua – who had connections to the Chinese political elite – disappeared from a Hong Kong hotel and later resurfaced on the mainland. 

In last year’s legislative council elections, six candidates were barred from running because of their political stance. 

The two pro-independence candidates who did end up getting elected were prevented from taking office. 

If “intolerable political stance” is now a valid excuse for barring LegCo candidates, then it won’t be long before the entire Hong Kong government is reduced to a miniature version of China’s.
The Joint Declaration was meant to guarantee that no Hong Kong resident would have to fear a “midnight knock on the door”. 

The reality at present is that what happened to my father can happen to any Hong Kong resident the mainland authorities wish to silence or bring before their own system of “justice”. 

Twenty-one years ago, John Major pledged that Britain would continue to defend the freedoms granted to Hong Kong by the Joint Declaration against its autocratic neighbour. 

Today, instead of holding China to its agreement, Britain glances down at its shoes and mumbles about the importance of trade. 

It is as if the British government wants to forget all about the promise it made to the people of Hong Kong. 

But China’s crackdown on dissent has made it difficult for Hong Kongers to forget.
Theresa May often emphasises the importance of British values in her speeches. 

But Britain’s limpness over Hong Kong seems to demonstrate only how easily these values are compromised away. 

I worry about the global implications of China being allowed to just walk away from such an important treaty. 

And I worry that in the years to come, we will have many more Lee Bos and Gui Minhais, kidnapped and detained because their work facilitated free speech. 

Hong Kong’s last governor, Lord Patten, has repeatedly argued that human rights issues can be pushed without bad effects on trade. 

Germany, for example, has shown that this is entirely possible, with Angela Merkel often publicly criticising China’s human rights record. 

With a potentially hard Brexit around the bend, a much reduced Britain will need a world governed by the rule of law. 

How the government handles its responsibilities to Hong Kong will be decisive in shaping the international character of the country that a stand-alone Britain will become. 

I for one hope it will be a country that honours its commitments and that stands up to defend human rights.

State terrorism

China has a worrying habit of making business leaders disappear
by Sherisse Pham

The mystery of disappearing Chinese tycoons

A TOP EXECUTIVE SUDDENLY DROPPING OFF THE RADAR WOULD BE ALARMING FOR ANY COMPANY. BUT IN CHINA, IT'S BECOME A DISTURBINGLY FAMILIAR SITUATION.
The latest example is Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of a major insurance company that owns the Waldorf Astoria in New York and recently held talks with the Kushner family over a Manhattan office tower.
He is reported to have been detained by authorities on Friday as part of a government investigation. His company, Anbang Insurance Group, said in a short statement that Wu "cannot perform his duties due to personal reasons."
His abrupt absence follows a string of cases in recent years in which business leaders were unceremoniously yanked from their duties by authorities, leaving employees and shareholders in the dark.
In 2015, senior executives from dozens of Chinese companies disappeared. 

Some returned to their posts, others did not.
The driving forces appeared to be Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption as well as government investigations into China's stunning stock market crash in the summer of 2015.
Last year was relatively quiet, but a new push now seems to be unfolding ahead of an important meeting of China's political elite in the fall. 

Earlier this year, the head of the country's stock market watchdog reportedly vowed to capture more tycoons engaged in market manipulation.
Here are three of the most high-profile cases from the past 18 months:

Nabbed from the Four Seasons
Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua was seized from his apartment at the Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong and taken to mainland China in late January, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Xiao controls the Tomorrow Group, a massive holding company with stakes in banks, insurers and property developers.

Xiao Jianhua

Days after he went missing, a front page ad published in a Hong Kong newspaper muddied the waters by appearing to deny he had been seized.
The statement, which had Xiao's name printed at the bottom, said that he was "recuperating overseas" and hoped to meet with media once he had recovered.
Nearly five months later, it's unclear what's happened to him.

China's Warren Buffett
Chinese conglomerate Fosun Group's investments include Club Med, Cirque de Soleil and Thomas Cook. 

Its chairman, Guo Guangchang, has been dubbed the Warren Buffett of China.
But Guo's fame and fortune did not save him from going missing for several days at the end of 2015. Fosun suspended trading of its shares after his sudden disappearance.

Guo Guangchang

When Guo finally resurfaced, the company said in a statement that he had been assisting officials with investigations.
His brief absence didn't derail Fosun's business. 

The company pulled in $11 billion in revenue last year.

Clothing tycoon
Zhou Chengjian, the billionaire founder of one of China's leading clothing companies, went missing in January last year.
After reports that Zhou had been detained by authorities, his company, Metersbonwe suspended trading of its shares.

Zhou Chengjian

The textile tycoon suddenly returned to work 10 days later.
The company gave no details about his disappearance.

New world of Chinese palace intrigue

Battles once waged behind closed doors now play out in public 
By Gabriel Wildau in Shanghai

When he is not tweeting lurid corruption allegations against top Communist party officials and their relatives, exiled Chinese property tycoon Guo Wengui likes sharing photos of himself lifting weights in his Fifth Avenue penthouse.
Mr Guo is the subject of an Interpol “red notice” issued at Beijing’s request, but he appears to be living the life of a Kardashian, posing on yachts and joining Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Palm Beach.
This is the new world of Chinese palace intrigue.
Factional struggles once waged behind closed doors now increasingly play out in public and online, with rival factions apparently using news media and surrogates like Mr Guo as proxies.
And with a political changeover expected later this year, it seems likely that more and more scandals will play out in this way.
Xi Jinping is certain to be chosen for another term as party secretary, but he is also seeking to install loyalists on the elite Politburo Standing Committee in order to consolidate his power.
His adversaries want the same for themselves.
Both sides are honing a strategy first practised during the last Communist party leadership transition five years ago, when the downfall of populist rising star Bo Xilai made clear how media leaks can be a powerful tool for discrediting political opponents.
The use of proxies also enables plausible deniability in case opponents cannot be toppled.
This latest battle appears to pit the leaders of Xi’s ferocious anti-corruption drive against those who see it as a thinly disguised political purge.
Xi pledged that his anti-corruption campaign would target both “tigers and flies”.
China’s runaway TV hit this year is In the Name of the People, the story of a dogged prosecutor who unravels corruption stretching from a small city to the halls of power in Beijing.
In the show, the prosecutor proceeds from bottom to top, netting low-level flies who eventually lead him to a tiger.
Yet critics of Xi’s campaign argue that real-life corruption investigations proceed in the opposite direction: investigators first set their sights on a tiger, then squeeze his loyalist flies until they produce evidence against him.
Mr Guo is challenging the core legitimacy of the anti-corruption campaign by training his fire on Wang Qishan, who heads the party’s anti-graft agency and is widely viewed as the second-most powerful man in China.
Weakening Mr Wang’s standing could affect this year’s leadership transition — by making it difficult for him to secure a second five-year term on the Politburo Standing Committee.
Beyond Mr Guo, a series of other public allegations and arrests have rocked Chinese high finance. These include the abduction of billionaire financier Xiao Jianhua from the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong by Chinese security agents and the detention of Xiang Junbo, former head of China’s insurance regulator, on allegations of corruption.
Anbang, a swashbuckling insurance conglomerate that owns the Waldorf Astoria, was also widely assumed to have allies in the upper echelons of the Communist party.
So when Caixin, the country’s leading independent news website, published a lengthy investigative report last month alleging financial deception by Anbang, it was seen as a possible political salvo. Anbang has denied the allegations and stated its intention to sue Caixin and its chief editor, Hu Shuli. Yet many saw the decision by Ms Hu, one of China’s best-connected journalists, to publish the article as a sign that the political winds had shifted against Anbang.
Days after the article was published, China’s insurance regulator slapped Anbang with a three-month ban on selling new products.
In a strongly worded statement, the regulator accused the insurer of “wreaking havoc” in the market. Chinese elite politics have always been cut-throat, but rarely have outside observers been able to see the long knives glinting.

Billionaire's corruption claims ripple through China's Communist Party

A Chinese billionaire in exile is meddling with the inner workings of China's Communist Party.
DW

China's government censor warned in April there would be "serious consequences" for unauthorized media coverage of Guo Wengui, the billionaire real estate magnate living in the United States. 

His case is "highly politically sensitive," it stated.
There is a reason China's Communist Party is so concerned: A few days earlier Guo had accused high-ranking party members of corruption in a live interview with the Mandarin-language service of Voice of America (VOA), a US government-funded media outlet. 

The livestream, scheduled for three hours, was halted after 80 minutes. 

The video stopped just as Guo began discussing Wang Qishan, who heads China's internal corruption watchdog.
Five VOA employees were put on administrative leave thereafter, including Service Chief Sasha Gong. 

The decision to cut short the livestream was made before it began, VOA stated. 

It added there was no pressure to do so from the US government, and while China did pressure the organization, VOA said that did not influence its decision.

Wang Qishan's role as chief corruption watchdog is considered second in power only to President Xi Jinping

Ex-spy chief on video
Bill Ide, a Beijing correspondent for VOA, was informed that the Guo interview was viewed as an interference in internal Chinese affairs and summoned by the Foreign Ministry, two VOA employees told The New York Times. 

The broadcast will reportedly play a role in visa extensions for VOA journalists.
A Chinese media campaign against Guo is underway, including videos with Ma Jian, the former acting director of state security who was detained two years ago in a corruption investigation. 

In the videos, he speaks about a number of unseemly business dealings he helped Guo with.
China's foreign ministry said on April 20 that Interpol had issued a "red notice" for Guo. 

A "red notice" is an international alert for someone wanted for extradition. Guo, a member of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, resides in the US, which does not have an extradition treaty with China.

Abduction in Hong Kong
Despite China's official designation as a socialist country "with a Chinese character," its economic opening starting more than 25 years ago has produced the most billionaires in the world. 

Real estate has been a particularly fruitful way to amass wealth, which is maintained with the help of political connections and protection. 

But it can be risky business: Billionaire Xiao Jianhua was abducted from his hotel in Hong Kong in January and returned to mainland China. 

The Canadian passport holder, who the New York Times reported in 2014 had business ties with relatives of Xi Jinping, has not been heard from since.

Billionaire Xiao Jianhua was abducted from his hotel in Hong Kong and taken to mainland China in January

Dangerous political infighting
Information on powerful families is particularly valuable this year. 

The Communist Party will hold its quinquennial conference in the fall, during which new leadership will be chosen. 

Corruption accusations can serve as a useful tool for eliminating opposition vying for top posts. 

Guo's claims may wreak havoc on internal party politics, and there may be more to come: He has announced a press conference for June in New York. 

He has already compared the relationship between Chinese business people and politicians to prostitution.

The Exiled Chinese Billionaire With a Mar-a-Lago Membership

By Scott Cendrowski

Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Kwok

If you missed the latest billionaire scandal in China, you could be forgiven.
The case of Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Kwok, the billionaire property developer of Beijing Zenith Holdings, has mostly been carried out in Chinese language sites and through Beijing's propaganda machine.
The only people to make sense of the disparate stories are keen observers of elite Chinese politics. Those include the English language newsletter writer Bill Bishop, who has chronicled the case over the last two days, and New York Times reporter Michael Forsythe.
Here's what is clear. 

It is always dangerous to be a billionaire in China, especially one in real estate. 

Local governments control the land, and graft almost always lurks behind the deals that turn real estate from public to private.
Guo made his money through real estate. 

He's lobbed corruption accusations at China's most powerful, and the government has returned the insults. 

This week China succeeded in getting Interpol to call for Guo's arrest.
The latest episode is a growing embarrassment for the Communist Party particularly because it questions whether Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign can truly take on the China Communist Party's endemic corruption. 

Guo's accusations of corruption climb to the highest level of Chinese politics.
Here's the basic rundown:
After accusing officials of corruption throughout his career—according to investigative reports in Chinese media—Guo has recently taken on a deputy minister of Public Security. 

Guo was scheduled to give a three-hour interview to Voice of America on Wednesday, during which he promised "a nuclear bomb of corruption allegations.”
But after an hour, the interview abruptly stopped. 

Chinese officials pressured Voice of America to cancel the interview, an official with the broadcaster told the New York Times.
Guo's staged his latest interviews from the U.S., where he arrived in 2015, reportedly after his ally, former spy chief Ma Jian, was detained in an anti-corruption case. 

In the U.S. he has joined Trump's Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago resort, a fact that could ratchet up China-U.S. diplomatic intrigue in his case.
Since then, Beijing has staged a counter attack. 

Stories discrediting Guo have flowed from Chinese state media outlets this week.
What follows now is unclear.
Guo appears to remain safe in the U.S. to send more accusations of corruption at Chinese officials, unlike Xiao Jianhua, a billionaire abducted by Chinese state security from Hong Kong across the Chinese border earlier this year. 

Xiao was known for helping China's powerful move their assets overseas, according to Willy Lam, a professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The latest drama is important in part because it involves high level officials. 

But it is also unfolding a few months before a once-every-five-years leadership change in the ruling Politburo Standing Committee, and it could change the calculus of filling five of the seven opening seats.

'The darkest time': Hong Kong reels over bizarre disappearance of Chinese billionaire

Xiao Jianhua vanished from his luxury hotel residence, spirited away by China’s state security in a wheelchair and covered by a sheet

By Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong

Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese-born Canadian billionaire, reads a book outside the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong. Mystery now surrounds his exact whereabouts.

It has been more than two weeks since Xiao Jianhua last crossed the threshold of his luxury suite at the Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong.
For a billionaire -- even one with a relatively low profile like Xiao -- to vanish would, in normal times, be alarming.
But when the place he has been sucked into is the black hole of China’s security state, nerves have become increasingly rattled.
Xiao is renowned for his close relationships and business dealings with elite families, including Xi Jinping's relatives. 

Many believed those connections made him untouchable.
His bolt hole at the Four Seasons – where suites can cost £21,000 a month – and the relatively safe environs of Hong Kong, which has a separate legal system from China, were seen as affording extra protection.
Xiao also employed multiple security firms and surrounded himself with a squad of female bodyguards who were apparently known to wipe the sweat from his brow.

University of Hong Kong photo of Xiao Jianhua, founder of Beijing-based Tomorrow Group.

But all that changed when he was seen being led away in a wheelchair by plain clothes Chinese security agents, his head covered by a sheet, and taken across the border into China, possibly by boat to avoid immigration checks, according to a report in the New York Times.
As Hong Kong prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of its handover from Britain to China, Xiao’s case, like the disappearance of five booksellers a little more than a year ago, highlights the erosion of promised freedoms and autonomy, and threatens to undermine the territory’s global reputation.
“There’s an increasing tendency of Hong Kong becoming more and more like just another Chinese city,” said Anson Chan, the former lawmaker and number two official in Hong Kong. 

“How else can we compete as a global city other than holding on to the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and rights and freedoms, particularly freedom of expressions and free flow of information?
“These are Hong Kong’s strengths but every day we see an erosion of those strengths. The long arm of the mainland authorities reaches far and wide into Hong Kong.”
Xiao is the 32nd richest person in China, with a fortune of Y40bn (£4.7bn). 

He has more than tripled his wealth since 2013, and many believe it is a low estimate anyway. 

He controls Tomorrow Group, which has stakes in real estate, insurance, banking, coal and cement firms.
His vast wealth may have been his downfall, with the head of China’s stock market regulator saying “there must be a plan to capture and bring capital market crocodiles back to the mainland”.
Beijing will not allow tycoons to “suck the blood of retail investors”, Liu Shiyu, chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at a meeting on Friday, without directly naming Xiao. China’s stock markets experienced a politically embarrassing rout in 2015, erasing £4 trillion in stock value and severely denting the reputation of the country’s nascent markets.
Xiao helped Xi’s sister and brother-in-law dispose of assets after Bloomberg News reported on the wealth of the president’s family in 2012, and has invested in the same deals with other members of the political elite.
After Xiao was abducted, his wife filed a request for police assistance – but then tried to withdraw it and flew to Japan. 

While the Hong Kong police have said they are investigating the case, sources have described the case as far above their pay grade.
Hong Kong’s business world meanwhile is reconsidering the implications of dealing with Chinese firms, especially those controlled by politically connected elites.
“There used to be a feeling that if you invested with politically powerful people you were safe, but Xiao’s disappearance shows that doesn’t work,” said a businessman in Hong Kong with extensive dealings in China who asked not to be named. 

“A lot of people are wondering: if I can get snatched from my home in the middle of the night, is this worth it?”
Many saw Hong Kong as a sanctuary. 

As part of the agreement for the UK to transfer sovereignty to China, Hong Kong maintains separate laws, banking regulations and freedoms not found on the mainland, under an arrangement known as “one country, two systems”. 

Under that agreement Chinese police are forbidden from operating in the city.
“For anyone that has illusions Hong Kong is some kind of safe haven, they are lying to themselves. If China wants to arrest you, they will,” the businessman said. 

“Most people just hope they can get themselves, their family and their money out of Hong Kong before the Chinese can catch up with them.”
When five booksellers – publishers of thinly sourced stories on China’s leaders – disappeared in 2015, droves of foreign businessmen lobbied consulates in the city to register their concerns with Hong Kong and Chinese authorities.

In Hong Kong's book industry, everybody is scared
“This is the darkest time for Hong Kong’s human rights and freedom,” said Nathan Law, a lawmaker and member of the legislature’s security committee. 

“We used to think being taken away in the middle of the night would only happen in mainland China, but it happens in Hong Kong now.
“With the current government, and Xi Jinping leading China, the situation has gotten worse, and every Hong Kong citizen can feel it,” he added, saying there had been a rapid deterioration in the past five years.
Some constituents have told Law they are considering emigrating in light of the recent disappearance as they no longer feel safe. 

Leaving the city has long been a backup plan for wealthier residents, with massive waves of emigration following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and in the years leading up to the handover from Britain in 1997.
One reason for the timing of Xiao’s abduction may be a high-level Communist party meeting in October where there is set to be a shakeup in the almighty Politburo Standing Committee. 

Xi Jinping, one of the most powerful leaders since Mao Zedong, has spent the past five years consolidating that power and wants to ensure there will be no interference in his plans.
Xiao’s investments with elite families mean he is privy to a host of potentially damaging information on a range of Communist party leaders. 

And this is not the only time he has felt political heat. 

When Chinese media reported he had privatised state assets below market value, Xiao moved to Canada, where he has citizenship, according to a 2014 New York Times profile.
Xiao also holds a diplomatic passport from Antigua and Barbuda as an ambassador-at-large with the power to “promote investment, trade and commerce, business and tourism development, and negotiate with the authorities and business entities of all states and territories”.
That appointment was not without controversy, with an Antiguan opposition politician alleging Xiao was given 200 passports to dole out as he wished.
There has been no official comment from China on Xiao’s disappearance and many still wonder what exactly he might have done.
“There are many powerful businessmen in Hong Kong, they could cross an unknown red line at any moment, and there are more and more of these red lines,” said Law, the outspoken pro-democracy lawmaker.
“Maybe one day I’ll cross a line without knowing and then the next day I won’t be in Hong Kong. That threat indeed exists.”

Peking Opera

WITNESSES SAY MISSING CHINA BILLIONAIRE XIAO JIANHUA TAKEN FROM HONG KONG HOTEL IN WHEELCHAIR
BY REUTERS 

The Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong, from which Xiao Jianhua disappeared on January 27.

Missing Sino-Canadian billionaire Xiao Jianhua was whisked in a wheelchair from a luxury Hong Kong hotel in the early hours of Jan 27 with his head covered, a source close to the businessman told Reuters.
Xiao was carried into his own car at the entrance to the Four Seasons serviced apartments in the heart of the Asian financial hub in what appeared to be a "smooth operation", another source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The comments from the sources confirmed a report in the New York Times on the disappearance of Xiao, who has close ties to senior Chinese officials and their families.
Despite a statement issued in Xiao's name over 10 days ago that he was seeking medical treatment overseas and had not been abducted, his disappearance has rekindled fears over Hong Kong's status as an independent judicial entity of China.
"It is uncertain if Xiao was conscious when he left," the second source said, adding that it took at least a few people to carry the billionaire into the car.
"There was no struggle in the whole process. You could even say it was efficient. It was a smooth operation."
Reuters could not independently verify the circumstances at the time Xiao was taken out of the hotel or the condition of his health.
Assistants of Xiao were waiting in the lobby of the hotel's serviced apartments when at least five people, dressed in casual attire, came in, said the second source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The group, which media have reported were mainland Chinese agents, were escorted to Xiao's room by his assistants and they left shortly after with the businessman and some luggage, the second source said.
The source close to Xiao who said the billionaire left the hotel in a wheelchair said his head was covered with some cloth, but it was not clear what the material was. 

The source added that as far as he knew Xiao did not use a wheelchair and there was nothing wrong with his legs.
A Hong Kong police source who was briefed on the probe into Xiao's disappearance had previously told Reuters the case was initially treated as a "kidnapping" following a complaint from someone connected to Xiao.
But after a review of CCTV footage at the Four Seasons and at the border checkpoint, police concluded that Xiao had voluntarily left Hong Kong.
They said Xiao had entered mainland China through a border checkpoint on Jan 27 and that they were seeking more information on the case from Chinese authorities.
Police and the Four Seasons did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.
China's Ministry of State Security, Foreign Ministry and Public Security Bureau have so far not responded to Reuters requests for comment on whether Chinese agents were involved in Xiao's disappearance.

CORRUPTION CRACKDOWN
Xiao's disappearance has sparked widespread media speculation that he has been drawn into Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption, which has ensnared a string of Chinese executives.
Any indication that Xiao may have been forcibly removed from the former British colony would be a breach of the "one country, two systems" framework under which it has been governed since its return to mainland Chinese rule in 1997.
Xiao's case has already spooked many mainland Chinese working in the city, with some already making contingency plans and seeking advice on moving assets overseas.
Another source close to Xiao said his immediate family and the company's senior executives witnessed nothing unusual ahead of his disappearance.
Xiao's wife and brother were not in Hong Kong when he left the Four Seasons, the third source said, declining to say where they were at the time.
They immediately rushed back to Hong Kong, the source said.
"Everybody freaked out," the source said. 

"Nobody knew where he went, nobody knew what was happening."
Xiao's wife and brother have already "fled" Hong Kong to Canada, according to the third source.
Xiao's family, company executives and lawyers wrote a statement in Xiao's name "in a rush" to quell speculation that the billionaire had been kidnapped, the source said.
The statement, published on the front page of Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper five days after he went missing, said he was seeking medical treatment "outside the country" and "had not been abducted to the mainland."
It is uncertain if the family had been in touch with Xiao when the statement was drafted.
Outside law enforcement agencies, including those from mainland China, are not authorized to operate in Hong Kong, which enjoys wide-ranging freedoms not allowed on the mainland, including a separate legal system.
Police commissioner Lo Wai-chung said in a radio talk show last Saturday that there was no sign of mainland authorities enforcing the law in Hong Kong.
Xiao, who runs Tomorrow Holdings, a financial group headquartered in Beijing, was ranked 32nd on the 2016 Hurun China rich list, China's equivalent of the Forbes list, with an estimated net worth of $5.97 billion.
At least two of Tomorrow Group's statements posted after Xiao's disappearance on their social media account were deleted, pointing to what appears to be heightened sensitivity in Beijing over the case.

Peking opera

Deleted postings about missing Chinese billionaire hint at tensions
By Julie Zhu and Venus Wu | HONG KONG

An entrance to Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong February 1, 2017, where Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua was last seen on January 27. 

A statement of Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua is printed on the front page of local newspaper Ming Pao in Hong Kong, China February 1, 2017. 

Scores of China social media postings about a well-connected billionaire who went missing from a Hong Kong hotel have been deleted, pointing to what appears to be heightened sensitivity in Beijing over the case of Xiao Jianhua.
Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of Xiao, one of China's richest men who has close ties to its leaders and their relatives. 

He was last seen at Hong Kong's Four Seasons hotel in late January, with media saying he was abducted and taken to the mainland.
The case has echoes of the disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers more than a year ago who had published books critical of China's leaders.
The booksellers' case raised concern about interference by Beijing in Hong Kong and the erosion of its freedoms, guaranteed under a 1997 deal that returned the former British colony to Chinese rule.
Authorities in Beijing have declined to comment on Xiao's case.
Hong Kong's government has also not commented. 

The city's police say they are investigating and have approached Chinese authorities to ascertain his "situation in mainland China".
Xiao's disappearance has sparked widespread media speculation that he has been drawn into Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption, which has ensnared a string of Chinese executives.
After his disappearance, a statement from him appeared on his company's verified WeChat account saying he had not been abducted and had not been taken to mainland China.
The statement added he was "currently abroad being medically treated". 

Hong Kong police say Xiao crossed the border to mainland China.
When news of Xiao's disappearance in Hong Kong began breaking early last week, searches on Chinese search engines and social media for him generated many results, mostly links to reports related to statements he had issued via his company, Tomorrow Holdings, a financial group headquartered in Beijing.
But those posts and most reports related to Xiao have disappeared, with search results only bringing up reports about him from several weeks earlier.

DELETED POSTS
According to Freewechat.com, which tracks censored or deleted posts on China's biggest social network, WeChat, more than 40 articles with the keyword Xiao Jianhua had been censored since Jan. 30.
A similar number of reports with the word "Mingtianxi", which refers to Tomorrow Group and its subsidiaries, were also deleted.
Tencent Holdings Ltd, which operates WeChat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Sina, which runs China's Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, told Reuters it censors and deletes posts according to its code of conduct.
But the spokesman declined to comment on any deleted posts related to Xiao and his business ties.
More social media posts purportedly detailing Xiao's business links with high-profile companies and senior leaders were also deleted over the weekend.
The Chinese government routinely censors the internet, blocking many sites it deems could challenge the rule of the Communist Party or threaten stability.
China's internet regulator did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Shares in firms directly or indirectly controlled by Tomorrow Group slumped on Friday, with Baotou Huazi Industry and Xishui Strong Year Co Ltd Inner Mongolia both down the maximum 10 percent.
Shares of Baotou Huazi were down 2.6 percent on Monday, while Xishui Strong Year was down nearly 5 percent.
Xiao was ranked 32nd on the 2016 Hurun China rich list, China's equivalent of the Forbes list, with an estimated net worth of $5.97 billion.

Peking opera

Disappearance of Chinese Billionaire Alarms Financial Sector
By Yifan Xie in Shanghai and Josh Chin in Beijing

The Tomorrow Group building in Beijing. The group’s founder is missing and stocks connected to his business empire were battered on Friday. 

The disappearance of Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua, one of several prominent financial figures who have gone missing since China’s 2015 stock-market crash, is sending shivers through China’s financial sector.
The uncertainty surrounding Xiao’s whereabouts sent stocks related to his business tanking Friday as trading resumed after the Lunar New Year holiday. 

Trading volume on the Shanghai market dropped to its lowest level in more than a year amid tepid sentiment further hurt by liquidity concerns.
Speculation over Xiao’s absence erupted earlier this week with unconfirmed reports that he had been abducted in Hong Kong by Chinese law-enforcement agents. 

Hong Kong police said on Wednesday they had asked mainland authorities for more information after determining Xiao, a Hong Kong resident, had crossed into China on Jan. 27.
The news came a week after Xu Xiang, a star Chinese fund manager was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for stock manipulation, the highest-profile investor convicted after a summer of stock-market turmoil in 2015 wiped out a year’s worth of gains and roiled global markets.
“In a weak market, investors are very scared about any kind of uncertainty,” said Shen Zhengyang, an analyst at Northeast Securities, saying that Xiao’s sway over the market is “on a much larger scale than Xu Xiang’s.”
Xiao, who claims he models his approach on U.S. stock wizard Warren Buffett, is the founder of Tomorrow Holding, a sprawling web of investments from insurance and real estate to beet farming. After graduating from the Peking University in 1990 while still a teenager, Xiao dazzled the market by investing in unknown brokerage firms, banks and insurers just before they took off.
Now in his mid-40s, Xiao was No. 32 on the Hurun Report’s latest list of China’s wealthiest individuals with an estimated personal fortune of $6 billion.
In a brief statement late Thursday, Tomorrow Holding said the company and its subsidiaries were “operating normally.” 

It didn’t offer any news about Xiao’s status and the statement didn’t prevent shares of firms in which it has significant stakes from plummeting on Friday.
Xishui Strong Year Co. Ltd Inner Mongolia, a cement producer and insurance provider, and Baotou Huazi Industry Co., which produces sugar and electronic parts, both dropped the 10% maximum. Baotou Tomorrow Technology Co. Ltd., a chemical firm, was down 5%, the cap for shares identified as at risk for delisting.
At an aging building in a technology park in northwestern Beijing, identified as Tomorrow Holding’s address in regulatory filings, guards refused to let a reporter move past the lobby Friday afternoon.
A notice posted at the entrance of the building said Tomorrow Holding “has not received any notice requiring it to cooperate with a legal investigation.” 

It threatened legal action against media and others who spread rumors about the company.
Earlier in the week, the company posted, then deleted, two statements attributed to Xiao saying the China-born financier has a Canadian passport and was receiving medical treatment abroad. 

The second statement, in which Xiao proclaimed his loyalty to the Communist Party, also appeared as a full-page ad in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper on Wednesday.
A number of high-profile Chinese businessmen have gone missing for various lengths of time since Xi Jinping’s pledge to sweep away corruption four years ago.
Several property and energy moguls disappeared in 2013 in connection with an investigation into powerful former security czar Zhou Yongkang, who was sentenced to life in prison for corruption in 2015.
After the 2015 stock-market rout, authorities detained around a dozen securities-industry executives, accusing some of “malicious short selling,” including Xu Xiang, the founder of Shanghai-based Zexi Investment Co.
He and two others pleaded guilty in December to using hundreds of trading accounts to manipulate the stocks of dozens of companies. 

He hasn’t spoken publicly since being arrested in 2015.
Guo Guangchang, chairman of financial conglomerate Fosun International, briefly disappeared in late 2015. 

He hasn’t given details of his absence beyond saying he was assisting authorities with an unspecified investigation.
Heather Hsu, a private-equity fund manager at Shanghai Beaconbridge Investment said that even though little is known about why Xiao went missing, his disappearance recalls Mr. Guo’s.
“His absence can’t be simply a business matter,” Ms. Hsu said
Tomorrow Holding has been in the limelight before. 

In June 2008, the online edition of People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, questioned the company’s role in the listing of Pacific Securities. 

The small, Yunnan-based broker went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2007, bypassing the long queue for initial public offerings despite suffering two consecutive years of losses. 

Pacific Securities was controlled by Tomorrow Holding prior to its listing.
In response to a 2014 report by the New York Times that Xiao has helped broker deals for members of China’s political elite, including relatives of Xi Jinping, Tomorrow Holding denied that the financier’s wealth stemmed from political connections.
“Almost all of China’s top-tier investors are politically influential,” said Brock Silvers, managing director at Kaiyuan Capital, a Shanghai investment advisory firm. 

Compared with Fosun’s Guo, who was the top decision maker behind its many deals, Xiao has kept a low profile, he said.
Calls to Xishui Strong, Baotou Tomorrow Technology, and Baotou Huazi went unanswered Friday. The website of Tomorrow Holding wasn’t accessible. 

The firm didn’t respond to calls and emails seeking comments.

Mystery Surrounds Whereabouts of Chinese Tycoon

Hong Kong police investigate after speculation billionaire Xiao Jianhua was abducted.
By JOSH CHIN in Beijing and CHESTER YUNG in Hong Kong

Xiao Jianhua is a finance tycoon who had been living in Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong police waded into a mystery surrounding the whereabouts of a Chinese billionaire on Wednesday, saying they had asked mainland authorities for more information after determining the businessman crossed the border into China.
The police probe came after speculation the billionaire, Xiao Jianhua, a finance tycoon who had been living in Hong Kong, had been abducted by Chinese agents. 

The reports rekindled concerns over threats to the independence of the city’s legal system, which bars such operations. 

Many in Hong Kong were rattled last year when local bookseller Lee Bo, a British citizen, was seized by Chinese agents and taken to the mainland.
Xiao is the founder of Tomorrow Holding Ltd. Co, also known as Tomorrow Group, a Beijing-based holding company with investments in areas ranging from real estate to agriculture. 

The Hurun Report ranked Xiao, who is in his mid-40s, as No. 32 on its latest list of China’s wealthiest individuals with an estimated personal fortune of $6 billion.
China’s financial media frequently marvel at the quick rise of Xiao, who graduated from Peking University in 1990 while still a teenager. 

Several news organizations, including the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper People’s Daily, have referred to him as xiaoxiong, a play on his name that describes someone who is uncommonly ambitious and formidable.

Xiao Jianhua
Reports by Bloomberg in 2012 and the New York Times in 2014 said Xiao has helped broker deals for members of China’s political elite, including relatives of Xi Jinping. 

In a public statement in response to the New York Times profile, Tomorrow Group denied that the financier’s wealth stemmed from political connections, saying instead he made money by studying the methods of American investor Warren Buffett.
In the same statement, the company spoke about Xiao’s decision not to join the 1989 student protests around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, saying the aggressiveness of the protesters led him to avoid politics and instead concentrate on his studies.
Disquiet over Xiao’s fate is likely to spread further if it emerges that Xiao, a well-connected businessman, was subject to the same treatment as Lee, the bookseller, in a city long celebrated as a capitalist sanctuary. 

Lee returned after three months and gave few details of his absence beyond saying he had gone to the mainland voluntarily to assist in an investigation
Concern around Xiao’s whereabouts was reported to Hong Kong police on Saturday, though police declined to say by whom. 

It set off a whirlwind of speculation. 

Some Chinese media, including the website of the state-run Securities Daily newspaper, dismissed as rumors reports that he had been abducted.
One of Xiao’s relatives reported to police on Sunday that the businessman told his family he was safe, according to Hong Kong police, which said that the investigation would proceed nonetheless.
Securities Daily and others quoted a statement posted Monday to Tomorrow Group’s public account on the WeChat messaging app that said Xiao was “recuperating overseas.” 

The Securities Daily article was no longer accessible by Wednesday morning.
Another statement posted to Tomorrow Group’s WeChat account on Tuesday explicitly denied that Xiao had been abducted, describing the Chinese government as "civilized" and "law-abiding".

It also said he is a Canadian citizen with permanent-resident status in Hong Kong. 

Both statements were attributed to Xiao himself.
“I’m a patriotic overseas Chinese. I’ve always loved the Communist Party and the nation and have never participated in any activity that harmed the interests of the country or the image of the government,” read the statement, which was reprinted as a full-page ad in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper on Wednesday. 

“Nor have I supported any hostile forces or organizations.”
By Wednesday, the two posts had been deleted from Tomorrow Group’s WeChat account. 

Calls and emails to Tomorrow Group went unanswered. 

The company’s website was also unavailable.
The Canadian consulate in Hong Kong said it had contacted authorities for more information and to provide assistance. 

It said it couldn’t release further information because of privacy concerns.
An official in the press office of China’s Ministry of Public Security said the office couldn’t process requests for comment during the Lunar New Year holiday. 

Calls to the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office went unanswered.
A number of high-profile businessmen have gone missing since Xi vowed to sweep away corruption four years ago. 

One notable example is Hua Bangsong, the founder of refinery designer Wison Engineering Services Co., who was detained by investigators in 2013 and sentenced in 2015 to three years in prison for bribery. 

Days after he was detained, he made his debut on the Hurun Report rich list at No. 335 with an estimated worth of $900 million.
Others reappeared after brief periods in government custody. 

They include Guo Guangchang, the billionaire founder of conglomerate Fosun Group, who disappeared briefly in December 2015. 

The company said Mr. Guo had been assisting authorities with an unspecified investigation.
In April 2015, property developer Kaisa Group Holdings welcomed back chairman Kwok Ying Shing less than four months after he resigned and disappeared amid speculation of his involvement in a corruption probe in the southern city of Shenzhen. 

Neither Mr. Guo nor Mr. Kwok have given details from their time away from the public view.